Part 8

The frenzied zeal of the willing fanatic being thus excited, he urged on his powerful steed, and raised his glittering sword. The hot animal by a weighty plunge came breast upon the font, and overthrew and brake it, and the consecrated water was spilled upon the ground. At this sight old Blount, with the strong arm of a Samson, caught at the bridle, and threw back the horse and his rider with so violent a force, that the hoofs slipped upon the smooth pavement, and they fell together; and before they had risen, the old man had caught up a heavy bar of wood near him, and raising the ponderous weapon with both hands, aimed so true and so deadly a blow at the sacrilegious chief that he never moved after; and the life-blood ran from his mouth and ears, and flowing onward, mingled with the water from the BROKEN FONT.

Every voice was silenced,--every foot was rivetted there where it stood. All were hushed and motionless, and every face looked ghastly. During this awful pause, the aged franklin, exhausted by the mighty and energetic deed, fell back against a seat, and, sinking into it, turned pale, and his eye-sight became dim. Noble went over and took his hand in alarm, and eagerly inquired, “What is this? what is this? Are you wounded?”

“No,” he faintly answered, “not wounded, but--this is--death. Heavenly Father, forgive me, for thy dear Son’s sake, for I knew not what I did.”

His wife and daughter and his sons now gathered round him; but he was dying, and his words were few. He tried to kiss his infant grandchild, and he said to Noble, with a heavy sigh,--

“Your trials are coming:--I count myself happy, and commit my own dear family and yours to him who remembers mercy in judgment;” and now, letting fall his head on his wife’s bosom, he breathed a few times in a struggling convulsive manner, and his spirit returned to the God who gave it.

CHAP. XI.

Even my prayers, When with most zeal sent upward, are pull’d down, With strong imaginary doubts and fears, And in their sudden precipice o’erwhelm me. MASSINGER.

The close of the December following the battle of Keinton found Cuthbert in winter quarters at Warwick. His regiment marched into that city on the day before Christmas-day; and, as soon as the men were distributed in their quarters, he walked towards Milverton, from that natural impulse which inclines us all to revisit any spot where we have passed a part, however small, of our mysterious lives.

It was a bright, clear, invigorating day: the ground was firm under the foot, and, though the sun shone out in a cloudless sky, there was so hard a frost that the pathways were clean. The trees glittered in the sun’s rays like frosted silver, and the face of nature looked healthy and cheerful, like the winter season of a hale old age.

The step of Cuthbert was not so fast or active as travellers use in such weather. He walked like one who reluctantly takes exercise, and in company in which he takes no pleasure. He was alone, indeed, but with care and doubt for his companions. Since the battle, he had been advanced to the command of a company of musketeers, and Maxwell had distinguished him by particular attentions. Randal was still his more constant associate; and the petty and disagreeable perplexities to which he had been at first subjected by the uncongenial persons with whom he had been thrown, and by the novelty of the duties to which he had been called, had altogether vanished: for in three months habits are formed, and we become accustomed to any mode of life. To be accustomed, however, is not to be reconciled to it. But this was the least, and the most trifling and despised ingredient in the bitter cup from which Cuthbert daily drank,--his conscience was not at peace. He drugged it with an opium, extracted, by a very common process, from the precepts and the promises of Scripture; but there was not a day of his life that it did not awake to some doubts and horrors, and the same medicine, dangerous where it is unskilfully applied, was taken to excess. He felt himself embarked in a black ship, with a wild and motley crew, and he dared not own to himself that he mistrusted those who navigated the vessel. Her way was through gloom and danger, and the voyage might, after all, end in shipwreck.

From the day of the battle, he was never seen to smile by any one; and from the severity of his thoughts, his countenance had gathered a sad yet stern complexion, which was not unsuitable to his present fortunes.

In a sort of hope that the sight of Milverton House might beguile his melancholy, might soothe him, by reviving sweet images of past and precious hours, and building, as he walked along, a new fabric of happy and peaceful liberty for his distracted country, he reached the well known gates of the once hospitable mansion. Absorbed in his reflections, he never raised his eyes to direct them towards the house, till he stood at the very portal. The gates lay upon the ground; the noble edifice was a blackened and a yawning ruin. A sudden and terrific thunder clap, bursting from a serene sky, could not so painfully have startled him. All around was silent--desolately, dreadfully silent; and the sun was bright, and the stony skeleton of the vast dwelling was black. He poured a passionate cry to God: he fell down upon the earth, and petitioned feverishly that the evil one might not hunt him to despair.

When he had in some measure recovered his composure, he rose and walked through the lonely and roofless ruins. The rubbish, which had fallen in when the floors and ceilings of the upper chambers gave way, or were consumed, had been disturbed, and removed in large quantities, to be sifted for any valuable metals which they might contain, so that he could make his way without difficulty, and could still trace distinctly all the lower apartments.

Near the fire-place in the large kitchen, on a part of the wall that had only been scorched, might still be read one of those rude and homely posies which were the delight of our honest forefathers, and might be found alike in the manor-house and the humbler cottage of the husbandman:--

“At Christmas be merry, and thankful withal, And feast thy poor neighbours, the great with the small; Yea all the year long, to the poor let us give, God’s blessing to follow us while we do live.”

And upon the other side of the fire-place was written up,--

“Play thou the good fellow; seek none to misdeem; Disdain not the honest, though merry they seem; For oftentimes seen, no more very a knave, Than he that doth counterfeit most to be grave.”

These posies brought more to Cuthbert’s mind than the memory of the happy Christmas he had once passed within these very walls. The lines, which he had known from his boyhood, were taken from old Thomas Tusser’s Book of Husbandry, the favourite manual of the old franklin Blount, and a work of which he remembered his father had always been very fond, and which stood upon the book-shelf at Cheddar next the Country Parson of Master George Herbert. All these recollections came upon him at once, and overwhelmed his spirit. He was totally ignorant of all that had been lately enacted at Cheddar, and of the present situation of his father. He had not heard of or from his parents for several months; but his fears for their safety had been quieted by a promise, that especial orders should be sent to all the forces of the Parliament to respect both the persons and the dwellings of all such relations of the officers and men serving the Parliament as did not take up arms against them, whatever might be their known sentiments on affairs of church and state.

How far this line of forbearance had been broken through, and how violently, the ruins around most plainly declared; for he was well assured that Francis Heywood would have omitted no precaution which could possibly have availed to protect the property of Sir Oliver; nor had he been present with the division by whom this wanton crime was effected would he have failed to repress it. But when “Havoc!” is once cried, and the dogs of war are once let slip, who shall, who can, restrain them, but he who sitteth in the circle of the heavens?

His fancy became bewildered with the thought of his mother’s grief, and the dangers to which she might possibly be exposed, and of the possibility that his father might be suffering the penalty of some bitter persecution by his adherence to the royal cause. He, as was his wont in all extremities of doubt and sorrow, betook himself to the only source of true comfort, when men are guided by the Spirit of truth to a right use of it:--he drew from the bosom of his doublet a small Bible. He implored direction from above; and yet, when he had done so, yielded to the petty superstition of opening the sacred volume suddenly, and taking the first text that presented itself to his eye for his counsellor. The words which he thus read were, “Where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.” He smote upon his breast with agony, perused the chapter of James the Apostle, from whence it was taken, and that which followed. All his resolutions were staggered and shaken. He was in a mood to unbuckle his sword, and to find a lodge in some wilderness where man could not penetrate. “Yet,” said he aloud, as pleading his own cause before the invisible throne, “Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I am not moved by the spirit that lusteth to envy in this great contention against apostasy and spiritual wickedness in high places.” In the fervour and agitation of his appeal his Bible fell from his hand, and when he took it up, it opened at that same epistle at the beginning of it; and reading there that he was to count it all joy falling into divers temptations, and that the trying of his faith worked patience, he was again as suddenly recovered to steadfastness, in what he blindly persuaded himself was the battle of the Lord; thus giving a most sad practical proof that he was a waverer, tossed and driven to and fro like a wave of the sea. What further doubts and changes might have coloured his meditations, and his prayers in that desolate and afflicting scene, had he been left alone to brood over all his fears, it is not possible to say; but he was roused and interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the paved path, which led up from the terrace towards the principal entrance, the steps of which yet remained. He stood aside, that the intruder, whoever it might be, should not discover him. To his surprise, it was no other than old Margery of the sand pit. She turned towards the offices as soon as she entered the Hall, and went winding her way through heaps of rubbish, towards an outhouse in the court-yard, the roof of which was still entire. Her aspect, and the echo of her staff and of her footsteps, in that solitary ruin, were very strange and affecting. Afraid of too suddenly alarming the aged and unhappy being, he followed her with light and noiseless steps to the low building, which she entered. Of the two small windows that gave it light one was half open, and having gained it, he could see and hear what was passing within. Laying down her bag and staff, she seated herself on a very low stool, close by the little fire-place, and applied her breath to the embers. The white ashes flew off, and laid bare the glowing embers. To these she applied a few dry sticks which she had brought with her, and a warm and cheerful flame, accompanied by a light crackling noise, soon blazed comfortably before her.

“I wonder where the master is this blessed day,” were her first words, “and Mistress Kate, that was God’s angel to me, and the rest of them. Wherever they are, Christ comfort them, and bless them: they were good friends to me, and to many. I never came to the gate, and went away without a measure of meal and a kind word; and it was a good day for my poor soul when the beautiful lady first talked to me:”--she stopped, and put on another stick or two;--“and Parson Juxon, that made me leave the pit, and gave me a bit of a cot to myself at Old Beech, where he and I would have been now but for the wars and the villainies of those devils that burned his house over his head, and made a bonfire to roast me, if it had not been God’s will to make ’em fall out about it. They called me ‘a child of hell,’ I mind:--well, it is not the first time--many a score times gentle and simple have called me the same, till within the last two years, and I thought it was all over, and I got to heaven already; but there’s a weary bit yet for me. I hope it wo’n’t be long. Now, if parson was here, he’d scold and look pleasant at me, and say, ‘God’s time’s the best time, Margery.’ Well, now, I’ve lost him--God’s will be done. I’ve been a poor sinful body all my days; but I never harmed any more than a curse might, and little ill could that do to any but my own poor self. It’s well it couldn’t; for if it had been able to kill, I should have sent it after many a one, and might again. God help me! I’ll be burnt for a witch some day yet; and, truth to say, I’ve many a time wished I was one,--but that’s all over. I say the Lord’s Prayer different now.”

Here she clasped and raised her lean and withered hands, and said it in a humble whisper on her knees.

Cuthbert was agitated terribly; but he dared not speak, he dared not enter.

“Who shall say,” thought his better mind, “who shall say that the blessed One, who taught his disciples thus to pray, is not present, dimly seen, perhaps, but felt with secret reverence and affection?”

Her prayer said, the old woman put a little earthen pot on the fire, and again seated herself on the stool by the side of it.

“Ah! it’s no merry Christmas,” said she, “here, or any where else; but I have known a worse; and I think this is safe hiding, for the folk all think the place haunted. Well, I must thank God, and make the best of it.”

As she ended these words, she began humming the air of an old Christmas carol, and at last sung, in the mournful voice of age, this ancient fragment:--

“He neither shall be clothed In purple nor in pall, But all in fair linen, As were babies all; He neither shall be rocked In silver nor in gold, But in a wooden cradle, That rocks on the mould.”

At the close he went to the door, and before he entered called her gently by name. The tone of voice in which he spoke had the effect which he intended, and, without any cry of alarm, she rose up quietly and turned round; but she no sooner beheld his military dress than her terror became excessive. It was quite in vain that he attempted to bring himself to her recollection: the fear of being dragged forth and led to the stake was uppermost, and entirely bewildered her. In his person she saw only one of those from whose hands she had so recently escaped, and her shrieks and implorations were agonising to hear. To relieve her he quitted the ruin; and before he was many hundred yards from it had the pain of seeing her on the far side of it hobbling fast towards the cover of the adjoining wood for concealment. He walked to his quarters in a miserable and dejected mood; and as he passed an open church which had apparently been occupied by Parliamentary soldiers, he went in for a moment. It was empty: the tombs and monuments had been broken and their inscriptions defaced: not a pane of glass in the tall windows had escaped destruction: a painting over the altar had been hacked to pieces; and, as if in mockery, the tables of God’s commandments were left on either side plainly legible, and above, in the midst, might be seen, in letters of gold, the words of that message of mercy which the angels of God sang to the shepherds keeping watch by night, when they announced the advent of Messiah,--_Peace on earth,--good will towards man_.

CHAP. XII.

Thus see we how these ugly furious spirits Of warre are cloth’d, colour’d, and disguis’d, With stiles of vertue, honour, zeale, and merits, Whose owne complexion, well anatomis’d, A mixture is of pride, rage, avarice, Ambition, lust, and every tragicke vice. LORD BROOKE.

It is now necessary to relate that treatment of George Juxon to which old Margery alluded in the last chapter. For six weeks after the first visit of the Parliamentary soldiers to Old Beech he successfully maintained his post, and continued to officiate every Sabbath among his people. His house, indeed, had been often beset by small parties of soldiers or by other godly reformers deputed to arrest him, but he was so beloved by the villagers that he was always warned, and was thus enabled to escape their hands or evade their search; nor were any of these parties of a strength sufficient for attempting acts of violence upon the church or the parsonage. Indeed one of them was fairly braved and driven away by Juxon himself, disguised like a farmer, and aided by his faithful friend the blacksmith and half a dozen more. One Sabbath morning, as he was out upon the watch, in the disguise of a belted woodman, he met a party coming to seize him about a mile from Old Beech, and, having put them on a wrong scent, went joyfully home, and preached to a glad and attentive congregation. However, his popularity and his very name were offences too great in the sight of the Roundheads of Coventry to suffer him much longer to elude his enemies. A squadron of horse made a sudden march from that city on a Sunday afternoon, and surprised both pastor and flock while engaged at divine service. They rode into the churchyard; and having there dismounted, their commander, followed by a dozen or more officers and troopers, entered the church with their steel caps on their heads, and, by the noise of their steps, would have drowned the voice of Juxon if he had not instantly made a pause to consider his best course. One look at the leader of this band satisfied him that any appeal to the spirit of love and of a sound mind would be vain; and a glance through the window had shown him that any resistance by force on the present occasion would only expose his people to a very great calamity.

The commander of the troops was no other than Sir Roger Zouch. Accordingly Juxon said, with a loud voice, “My Christian brethren, the worship of God in this place being thus interrupted, I dismiss you to your homes.” His manly tone caused an attention on the part of the soldiery, which produced a short and silent pause, and, taking advantage of this, he solemnly pronounced the blessing with which the service of the church always concludes. Sir Roger, after stammering with anger, now broke out most violently, “Peace, peace! thou criest peace where there is no peace, thou son of perdition. Come out of thy calves’ coop, and make an end of thy pottage. I know thee, who thou art; thy very name savoureth of all evil: take him out, thou good and faithful soldier of the cross, Zachariah Trim, and that book of abomination with him, and make my passage to yon pulpit pure;--verily I will speak a word to these poor, perishing, and neglected people.” If it had not been for Juxon’s discretion at this moment the church would soon have become a scene of blood; for the stout blacksmith, seeing Zachariah move towards the desk with an action as if he would lay hands on Juxon, interposed with so hasty and resolute a manner, as caused Zachariah to step back two or three paces and draw his sword. His example was instantly followed by many comrades; and the shrieks of alarm among the women and children were dreadful. But Juxon came forth in a collected mood, and so spoke, that the swords were returned to their scabbards, and his people submitted, though in fear yet in silence, while the few among them, who, like the blacksmith, were ready for any hazards, forebore any further attempt at resistance.

Sir Roger ascended the pulpit, put down his steel cap by his side, poured forth a long, rambling, confused prayer, took out his pocket Bible, and preached for two hours; till the sweat streamed down his bony cheeks, and his voice became hoarser than any raven that ever croaked his sad predictions at a sick man’s window. Juxon listened with profound and with indignant astonishment to his wild and blasphemous perversions of divine truth; but he was comforted, as far as his own flock was concerned, in the consciousness that they were better instructed than to be moved by his fanaticism. His manner corresponded with his matter; and if he had not been accompanied by too many and too formidable and ready ministers of his violent will he would only have excited sentiments of disgust and ridicule. But as he thundered forth his curses upon the church in which the poor villagers had been brought up, and described her by a flood of reproachful names and epithets, of which last, Babylonish was the most gentle, no one could listen to his ravings without serious fears that they were a plain preface to deeds of crime. It was, therefore, with a heart full of devout and sincere thanksgiving for his people that Juxon heard this strange and fierce iconoclast promise with solemnity that their houses and their little property should be respected, and that no one of them should suffer any harm from his soldiers; but that he would take away with him their blind and wicked guide, and would only purge and purify the polluted temple and the priest’s dwelling.

The surplice and hood of Juxon had been torn from his back before this precious discourse began, and he had been placed in custody between two armed troopers, with pistols in their hands, and was frequently addressed by the heated Sir Roger in those words which are applied both in the Old Testament and the New to false and unfaithful teachers. All this he had borne with a calm and admirable courage,--feeling within the answer of a good conscience, and supported by an unshaken faith in a God of wisdom and love.

“It is the Lord,” he said within himself, “let him do what seemeth him good,”--and all the unuttered petitions which his heart sent up to the throne of grace were for the spiritual and temporal preservation of his little flock.

When Sir Roger concluded his sermon, he gave forth one of those psalms, which, being directed against idolatry, he considered as appropriate to the work he now meditated. It was sung in loud and harsh notes by his gloomy looking troopers, after which, descending into the body of the church, he directed fire to be brought, and burned the Book of Common Prayer before the communion table; heaping on the same fire all those rags and fragments of the whore of Babylon, as he was pleased to designate pulpit and altar cloth, and all the decent vestments of the minister.

At this gross outrage, Juxon burst forth with a holy zeal, in a most earnest tone of faithful remonstrance; but he was instantly gagged in a painful mode, and was forced in this state to witness their after proceedings.

The people were now forcibly driven out of the church, and as many troopers as could find room were directed to come in and stable there for the night. The order was obeyed with tumultuous joy; and they had no sooner taken possession of their once sacred quarters, than they began and completed the work of demolition,--breaking the coloured windows, destroying the tombs, and crowning their work of hell by bringing in a baggage ass, and baptizing it with mock ceremonies at the font. This last work was not witnessed by Sir Roger, who was busily superintending the burning of poor George Juxon’s library, and of many _curiosa_ in the way of antiquities, which his father had collected in foreign countries, and bequeathed to him at his death.